Two hours' ride brought me to the place. Disaway's was an old mansion,standing on a hill above the Rowanty, near the "Halifax bridge," bywhich the great road from Petersburg to North Carolina crosses thestream. It was a building of considerable size, with wings, numerousgables, and a portico; and was overshadowed by great oaks, beneath whichgleamed the tents of Hampton and his staff.
As I rode up the hill, the staff came out to welcome me. I had knownthese brave gentlemen well, when with Stuart, and they were good enough,now, to give me the right hand of fellowship,--to receive me for oldtimes' sake, with "distinguished consideration." The general was ascordial as his military family--and in ten minutes I was seated andconversing with him, beneath the great oak.
A charming cordiality inspired the words and countenance of the greatsoldier. Nearly four years have passed, but I remember still hiscourteous smile and friendly accents.
All at once, the figure of a young woman appeared in the doorway. At aglance I recognized the golden ringlets of Katy Dare. She beckonedto me, smiling; I rose and hastened to greet her; in a moment we wereseated upon the portico, conversing like old friends.
There was something fascinating in this child. The little maiden ofeighteen resembled a blossom of the spring. Were I a poet, I shoulddeclare that her azure eyes shone out from her auburn hair like glimpsesof blue sky behind sun-tinted clouds!
I do not know how it came about, or how I found myself there, but in afew moments I was walking with her in the autumn woods, and smiling asI gazed into the deep blue of her eyes. The pines were sighing above us;beneath our feet a thick carpet of brown tassels lay; and on the summitof the evergreens the golden crown of sunset slowly rose, as though thefingers of some unseen spirit were bearing it away into the night.
Katy tripped on, rather than walked--laughing and singing gayly. Themild air just lifted the golden ringlets of her hair, as she threw backher beautiful face; her cheeks were rosy with the joy of youth; and fromher smiling lips, as fresh and red as carnations, escaped in sweet andtender notes, like the carol of an oriole, that gay and warbling song,the "Bird of Beauty."
Do you remember it, my dear reader? It is old--but so many good thingsare old!
"Bird of beauty, whose bright plumage Sparkles with a thousand dyes: Bright thine eyes, and gay thy carol, Though stern winter rules the skies!"
Do you say that is not very grand poetry? I protest! friend, I think itsuperior to the _chef d'oeuvres_ of the masters? You do not think so?Ah! that is because you did not hear it sung in the autumn forest thatevening--see the ringlets of Katy Dare floating back from the rosycheeks, as the notes escaped from her smiling lips, and rang clearly inthe golden sunset. Do you laugh at my enthusiasm? Well, I am going toincrease your mirth. To the "Bird of Beauty" succeeded a song which Inever heard before, and have never heard since. Thus it is a lost pearlI rescue, in repeating some lines. What Katy sang was this:--
"Come under, some one, and give her a kiss! My honey, my love, my handsome dove! My heart's been a-weeping, This long time for you!
"I'll hang you, I'll drown you, My honey, my love, my handsome dove! My heart's been a-weeping, This long time for you!"
That was the odd, original, mysterious, incomprehensible poem, whichKaty Dare carolled in the sunset that evening. It may seem stupid tosome--to me the words and the air are charming, for I heard them fromthe sweetest lips in the world. Indeed there was something so pure andchildlike about the young girl, that I bowed before her. Her presencemade me better--banished all discordant emotions. All about her wasdelicate and tender, and pure. Like her "bird of bright plumage" sheseemed to have flitted here to utter her carol, after which she wouldopen her wings and disappear!
Katy ran on, in the pauses of her singing, with a hundred little jests,interspersed with her sweet childlike laughter, and I was more and moreenchanted--when all at once I saw her turn her head over her shoulder.A bright flush came to her cheeks as she did so; her songs and laughterceased; then--a step behind us!
I looked back, and found the cause of her sudden "dignity," her demuresilence. The unfortunate Colonel Surry had quite disappeared from themaiden's mind.
Coming on rapidly, with springy tread, I saw--Tom Herbert! Tom Herbert,radiant; Tom Herbert, the picture of happiness; Tom Herbert, singing inhis gay and ringing voice:--
"Katy! Katy! Don't marry any other! You'll break my heart and kill me dead, And you'll be hung for murder!"
Wretch!--I could cheerfully have strangled him!
VII.
THE STUART HORSE ARTILLERY.
An hour afterward I was at the camp of the Stuart horse artillery.
Five minutes after greeting Tom, who had sought Katy, at"Disaway's"--been directed to the woods--and there speedily joined us--Ileft the young ones together, and made my way back to the mansion. Thereare few things, my dear reader, more disagreeable than--just whenyou are growing poetical--when blue eyes have excited your romanticfeelings--when your heart has begun to glow--when you think "I amthe cause of all this happiness, and gayety!"--there are few things Isay--but why say it? In thirty seconds the rosy-faced youngster Tom, haddriven the antique and battered Surry quite from the mind of the Bird ofBeauty. That discomfited individual, therefore, took his way back sadlyto Disaway's, leaving the children his blessing; declined the cordialinvitations to spend the night, mounted his horse, and rode to find WillDavenant, at the horse artillery.
Their camp was in the edge of a wood, near the banks of the Rowanty;and having exchanged greetings with my old comrades of the variousbatteries, and the gallant Colonel Chew, their chieftain, I repaired toWill Davenant's head-quarters.
These consisted of a breadth of canvass, stretched beneath a tree in thefield--in front of which burned a fire.
I had come to talk with Will, but our conversation was obliged to bedeferred. The brave boys of the horse artillery, officers and men,gathered round to hear the news from Petersburg; and it was a rarepleasure to me to see again the old familiar faces. Around me, in lightof the camp-fire, were grouped the tigers who had fought with Pelham,in the old battles of Stuart. Here were the heroes of a hundred combats;the men who had held their ground desperately in the most desperateencounters--the bulldogs who had showed their teeth and sprung to thedeath-grapple at Cold Harbor, Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg,Chancellorsville, Fleetwood, Gettysburg, in the Wilderness, atTrevillian's, at Sappony, in a thousand bitter conflicts withthe cavalry. Scarred faces, limping bodies, the one-armed, theone-legged,--these I saw around me; the frames slashed and mutilated,but the eyes flashing and full of fight, as in the days when Pelhamthundered, loosing his war-hounds on the enemy. I had seen bravecommands, in these long years of combat--had touched the hands of heroicmen, whose souls fear never entered--but I never saw braver fightersthan the horse artillery--soldiers more reckless than Pelham'sbloodhounds. They went to battle laughing. There was something of thetiger in them. They were of every nation nearly--Frenchmen, Irishmen,Italians,--but one sentiment seemed to inspire them--hatred of ourfriends over the way. From the moment in 1862, when at Barbee's theyraised the loud resounding _Marseillaise_, while fighting the enemy infront and rear, to this fall of 1864, when they had strewed a hundredbattle-fields with dead men and horses, these "swarthy old hounds" ofthe horse artillery had vindicated their claims to the admiration ofStuart;--in the thunder of their guns, the dead chieftain had seemedstill to hurl his defiance at the invaders of Virginia.
Looking around me, I missed many of the old faces, sleeping now beneaththe sod. But Dominic, Antonio, and Rossini were still there--thosemembers of the old "Napoleon Detachment" of Pelham's old battery; therestill was Guillemot, the erect, military-looking Frenchman,--Guillemot,with his hand raised to his cap, saluting me with the profoundestrespect; these were the faces I had seen a hundred times, and never anything but gay and full of fight.
Doubtless they remembered me, and thought of Stuart, as others had done,at seeing me. They gave me a soldier's welcome;
soon, from the grouparound the camp-fire rose a song. Another followed, then another, in therichest tenor; and the forests of Dinwiddie rang with the deep voices,rising clear and sonorous in the moonlight night.
They were old songs of Ashby and Stuart; unpublished ditties of thestruggle, which the winds have borne away into the night of the past,and which now live only in memory. There was one of Ashby, commencing,--
"See him enter on the valley,"
which wound up with the words,--
"And they cried, 'O God they've shot him! Ashby is no more!' Strike, freemen, for your country, Sheathe your swords no more! While remains in arms a Yankee On Virginia's shore!"
The air was sad and plaintive. The song rose, and wailed, and died awaylike the sigh of the wind in the trees, the murmuring airs of evening inthe brambles and thickets of the Rowanty. The singers had fought underAshby, and in their rude and plaintive song they uttered their regrets.
Then the music changed its character, and the stirring replaced the sad.
"If you want to have a good time, J'ine the cavalry!"
came in grand, uproarious strains; and this was succeeded by thejubilant--
"Farewell, forever to the star-spangled banner, No longer shall she wave o'er the land of the free; But we'll unfurl to the broad breeze of heaven, The thirteen bright stars round the Palmetto tree!"
At that song--and those words, "the thirteen bright stars round thePalmetto tree!"--you might have seen the eyes of the South Caroliniansflash. Many other ditties followed, filling the moonlight night withsong--"The Bonnie Blue Flag," "Katy Wells," and "The Louisiana Colors."This last was never printed. Here are a few of the gay verses of the"Irish Lad from Dixie:"--
"My sweetheart's name is Kathleen, For her I'll do or die; She has a striped straw mattress, A shanty, pig, and sty. Her cheeks are bright and beautiful, Her hair is dark and curly, She sent me with the secesh boys To fight with General Early.
"She made our flag with her own hands, My Kathleen fair and clever, And twined its staff with shamrock green, Old Ireland's pride forever! She gave it into our trust, Among our weeping mothers;-- 'Remember, Irish men!' she said, 'You bear the Red Cross colors!'
"She told me I must never run; The Rebel boys were brothers;-- To stand forever by our flag, The Louisiana colors! And then she said, 'If you desert, You'll go to the Old Baily!' Says I, 'My love, when I can't shoot, I'll use my old shillalah!'
"And many a bloody charge we made, Nor mind the battle's blaze; God gave to us a hero bold, Our bonny Harry Hays! And on the heights of Gettysburg, At twilight first was seen, The stars of Louisiana bright, And Katy's shamrock green.
"And oh! if I get home again, I swear I'll never leave her; I hope the straw mattress will keep, The pig won't have the fever! For then, you know, I'll marry Kate, And never think of others. Hurrah, then, for the shamrock green, And the Louisiana colors!"
It was nearly midnight before the men separated, repairing to theirtents. Their songs had charmed me, and made the long hours flit by likebirds. Where are you, brave singers, in this year '68? I know not--youare all scattered. Your guns have ceased their thunder, your voicessound no more. But I think you sometimes remember, as you muse, in thesedull years, those gay moonlight nights on the banks of the Rowanty.
VIII.
"CHARGE! STUART! PAY OFF ASHBY'S SCORE!"
These memories are beguiling, and while they possess me, my drama doesnot march.
But you have not been wearied, I hope, my dear reader, by this littlepencil sketch of the brave horse artillerymen. I found myself amongthem; the moonlight shone; the voices sang; and I have paused to lookand listen again in memory.
These scenes, however, can not possess for you, the attraction theydo for me. To proceed with my narrative. I shall pass over my longconversation with Will Davenant, whose bed I shared. I had promisedhis father to reveal nothing of the events which I had so strangelydiscovered--and was then only able to give the young man vagueassurances of a coming change for the better in his affair with MissConway. He thanked me, blushing, and trying to smile--and then we fellasleep beside each other.
Just at daylight I was suddenly aroused. The jarring notes of a buglewere ringing through the woods. I extended my arm in the darkness, andfound that Will Davenant was not beside me.
What had happened? I rose quickly, and throwing my cape over myshoulders, went out of the tent.
The horse artillery was already hitched up, and in motion. The settingmoon illumined the grim gun-barrels, caissons, and heavy horses, movingwith rattling chains. Behind came the men on horseback, laughing andready for combat.
As I was gazing at this warlike scene so suddenly evoked, Will Davenantrode up and pointed to my horse, which was ready saddled, and attachedto a bough of the great tree.
"I thought I wouldn't wake you, colonel," he said, with a smile, "butlet you sleep to the last moment. The enemy are advancing, and we aregoing to meet them."
He had scarcely spoken, when a rapid firing was heard two or three milesin front, and a loud cheer rose from the artillerymen. In a moment theguns were rushing on at a gallop, and, as I rode beside them, I saw acrimson glare shoot up above the woods, in the direction of the Weldonrailroad. The firing had meanwhile grown heavier, and the guns wererushed onward. Will Davenant's whole appearance had completely changed.The youth, so retiring in camp, so cool in a hot fight, seemed burnt upwith impatience, at the delay caused by the terrible roads. His voicehad become hoarse and imperious; he was everywhere urging on thedrivers; when the horses stalled in the fathomless mudholes, he wouldstrike the animals, in a sort of rage, with the flat of his sabre,forcing them with a leap which made the traces crack, to drag the pieceout of the hole, and onward. A glance told me, then, what was the secretof this mere boy's splendid efficiency. Under the shy, blushing face,was the passion and will of the born soldier--the beardless boy hadbecome the master mind, and drove on every thing by his stern will.
In spite of every exertion to overcome the obstacles in the roads, itwas nearly sunrise before we reached open ground. Then we emerged uponthe upland, near "Disaway's," and saw a picturesque spectacle. From thehill, we could make out every thing. A hot cavalry fight was going onbeneath us. The enemy had evidently crossed the Rowanty lower down; anddriving in the pickets, had passed forward to the railroad.
The guns were rushed toward the spot, unlimbered on a rising ground, andtheir thunder rose suddenly above the forests. Shell after shell burstamid the enemy, breaking their ranks, and driving them back--and by thetime I had galloped through a belt of woods to the scene of the fight,they lost heart, retreated rapidly, and disappeared, driven across theRowanty again, with the Confederates pursuing them so hotly, thatmany of the gray cavalry punched them in the back with their emptycarbines.[1]
[Footnote 1: Fact.]
Their object in crossing had been to burn a small mill; and in this theyhad succeeded, after which they retired as soon as possible to their"own side." Some queer scenes had accompanied this "tremendous militarymovement." In a house near the mill, resided some ladies; and wefound them justly indignant at the course of the enemy. The Federalofficers--general officers--had ordered the house-furniture to be piledup, the carriage to be drawn into the pile, and then shavings wereheaped around, and the whole set on fire, amid shouts, cheers, andfiring. The lady of the mansion remonstrated bitterly, but receivedlittle satisfaction.
"I have no time to listen to women!"[1] said the Federal general,rudely.
[Footnote 1: His words.]
"It is not _time_ that you want, sir!" returned the lady, with greathauteur, "it is _politeness_!"[1]
[Footnote 1: Her words.]
This greatly enraged the person whom she addressed, and he becamefurious, when the lady added that all the horses had been sent away. Atthat moment an officer near him said:--
"General if you are going to burn th
e premises, you had better commence,as the rebs are pursuing us."
"Order it to be done at once!" was the gruff reply.
And the mill was fired, in the midst of a great uproar, with whichmingled shouts of, "The Rebels are coming! The Rebels are coming!"
Soon they came, a hot fight followed, and during this fight a youngwoman watched it, holding her little brother by the hand near theburning mill. I had afterward the honor of making her acquaintance, andshe told me that throughout the firing she found herself repeating overand over, unconsciously, the lines of the song,--
"Charge! Stuart! pay off Ashby's score, In Stonewall Jackson's way."[1]
[Footnote 1: Fact.]
The enemy had thus effected their object, and retreated hotly pursued.I followed toward the lower Rowanty, and had the pleasure of seeing themhurried over. So ended this immense military movement.
IX.
MOHUN,--HIS THIRD PHASE.
I was about to turn my horse and ride back from the stream, acrosswhich the enemy had disappeared, when all at once Mohun, who had led thepursuit, rode up to me, and we exchanged a cordial greeting.
"Well, this little affair is over, my dear Surry," he said; "have youany thing to occupy you for two or three hours?"
"Nothing; entirely at your service, Mohun."
"Well, I wish you to accompany me on a private expedition. Will youfollow me blindfold?"
"Confidingly."
And I rode on beside Mohun, who had struck into a path along the banksof the Rowanty, leading back in the direction of Halifax bridge.
Mohun; Or, the Last Days of Lee and His Paladins. Page 35